Time for some standards
By Charles Miller

Recently while on a service call I was assisting a client perform some tasks online. We were using his Mac but ran into difficulties with a certain website where the pull-down menus on the site simply did not work. I pulled out my Windows laptop and found that the problem website worked fine when accessed using my computer and Windows XP.

My client was a little worried that his brand new Mac G4 was broken, but I quickly assured him this was absolutely not a problem with the Mac but with the web designers who had programmed that web page with non-working pull-down menus. I explained that web programmers are notorious for not following standards and not testing their work to make sure it performs correctly with both Mac and Windows computers.

In following up on this later I came across some surprising and regrettable facts. It is true that a lot of web designers are negligent when it comes to adhering to standards, but they are not the only ones to blame. Until looking into this story, I had believed that the software maker such as Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla, etc. were not culpable, but now I learn it is they who are responsible for this mess.

The World Wide Web Consortium (abbreviated W3C) is the main international standards organization for the internet and the World Wide Web. It is a group of member organizations, the stated purpose of which is to recommend and encourage the use of standards. The need for standards for writing web pages is no less important than the need for such coordination as having the same voltage of electricity from city to city, or for everyone agreeing to drive on the same side of the road. When someone deviates from these standards, little good can come of it.

The recommended standards are carefully designed to deliver the greatest benefits to the greatest number of web users while making the web cross-platform (compatible with differing Operating Systems).

I was disappointed to learn that neither Apple nor Microsoft followed standards when writing their software, being already aware of their arrogant “we don’t follow standards, we make them” attitude. Because Microsoft Windows and its Internet Explorer have achieved such an overwhelming dominance of the computer market, web developers would spend time tweaking their web pages in order to make the pages display correctly in 95 percent of computers running Windows, while ignoring the other 5 percent.

A group named the Web Standards Project has created a simple test to expose web page rendering flaws in web browsers and other software. The test page is found at acid2.acidtests.org and will be displayed correctly in any application that follows the guidelines of the World Wide Web Consortium and Internet Engineering Task Force. At the time the test was first put online a few years ago, no web browser passed the test; not Microsoft Internet Explorer, not Safari! None!

Popular browsers Firefox, Opera, Konqueror and Safari have introduced new versions in line with web standards. As of March 19, 2009, Internet Explorer 8 now passes the compatibility test.

Now it will no longer be necessary for web designers to deviate from standards to accommodate one browser or another. What I hope this means for all of us is that the WWW is evolving into a more universally-accessible cyberspace for everyone regardless of what computer we choose to use.


Charles Miller is a freelance computer consultant, a frequent visitor to San Miguel since 1981 and now practically a full-time resident. He may be contacted at 044-415-101-8528 or email FAQ8 (at) SMAguru.com.